Sparks Among the Ashes
by Ava Taggart
Summary: The world as you know it has ended. Horrors have spread across the globe like finger paint on a three-year-old's canvas. Safe Zones were created, but their walls can't keep the Yeerks at bay, so what can? Can a group of kids thrown together by chance form a team able to defend humanity against what might otherwise be its deathblow? Dystopian AU. Rated T because it gets intense.
1. Chapter 1

**Hello, and to everyone reading this, thank you! **

**A few notes up front about the story - this takes place in a dystopian AU. Things are a lot different than the normal world, but I'll try to explain as I go along. Because of the AU, the Animorphs have slightly different personalities than they do in canon. Please do not tell me that someone is OOC - I know, and I'm writing them that way on purpose. **

**Narrators will rotate with each chapter. Updates may be sporadic - follow this story if you don't want to miss them. And please review!  
**

**I do not own Animorphs.**

* * *

My name is Cassie.

For now, that's all I can tell you. I can't tell you my last name, or where I am, or anything, really, because if I do, they'll find me. And if they find me, they'll kill me. Or worse. A lot of people don't know that things _can_ be worse than death.

Trust me, things can get worse. A_ lot_ worse.

That means quite a bit, especially coming from me. Unlike the majority of people that will one day read this, I didn't grow up in a Safe Zone, relatively free from the threats of disease and violence and hideously mutated animals. No, I spent the first thirteen years of my life in the Deadlands, the ungoverned ruins where those things ran wild and I could easily have died on any given day. Until I was eight, I at least had my parents, who protected me and taught me how to protect myself, but shortly after I turned nine, our family was attacked by a pack of mutant wolves with no shelter nearby. My parents gave their lives that day so that I could run to the remains of an apartment building and climb out of reach of the wolves, and all I could do was watch as they were torn apart.

For two years I lived on my own. There were days when I was so lonely I wished I would die. There are days when I came close to death. But when I was about eleven I met Rachel, her eyes blue like the sky on a clear day and her blonde hair cut short and uneven with a knife she kept strapped to her thigh. Since that day, we've stuck together, remembering that there is safety in numbers, even if the number is only two. Friend isn't a strong enough word for what Rachel is to me. We're more like sisters. In a world where every day you stay alive is a small miracle, two years is a lifetime. She's saved my life more times than I can count, and I've saved hers. There's nothing we wouldn't do for each other.

On the day our lives changed, Rachel and I set out from the mostly intact ruins of a house hoping to find some water. We were running dangerously low and there was no river or pond in sight. We began making our way through the rubble and remains of the Old World, weapons at the ready, climbing each hill hoping to find water on the other side. It was another hour before Rachel saw anything of note.

"Cassie, look at this!" she said. It was impossible to tell what she'd found, just that it was something amazing. A lake? An intact building where we could stay the night? A field of tomato plants?

I ran over to her, hoping at best for a nice place where he could rest. Instead, something vastly different from the broken buildings surrounding us rose on the horizon. It was huge, for one thing, bigger than anything I'd ever seen. The edges, visible against the gray sky, were sharp and clean, if jagged in places. A yellow glow emanated from it, and it was then I recognized the thing for what it was.

"A Safe Zone," I say, unable to believe such a sight. I'd only seen one before in my entire life, and it was much smaller than the one on the horizon.

"Wow," Rachel said, awed by the sheer size of the thing. There was nothing else either of us could think to say. This was a miracle greater than a triple rainbow with a wish-granting tree at the end, even if we couldn't go in. Most Safe Zones have strict rules against Deadlanders entering, but still, just the sight of it, just knowing that there were humans other than us and the vicious gang members left, made even the shattered ruins around us seem more cheerful.

"I want to get closer," Rachel said. I didn't argue with her, because I wanted to get closer too, to be able to take in the sight of life continuing from close up. And hey, Safe Zones need water too, so maybe there was some nearby.

We started traveling again, this time with a destination in sight, with a purpose greater than simple survival. Carefully climbing the ruins and testing for unstable spots seemed unbearably slow. We sped up. We began to take more risks than usual. And that's probably why what happened next happened at all.

Rachel was making her way up a pile of loose rubble, chunks of concrete and brick wall only a little smaller than I am stacked haphazardly together. I didn't think to warn her to go around, focusing instead on making my way safely up a different pile of debris. One minute I was wondering what it would be like to be so close to a Safe Zone, and the next thing I knew, Rachel let out a cry of pain and she was on the ground, chunks of brick wall and other rubble lying on top of her.

I quickly scrambled down towards her, hoping she was still alive, hoping she wouldn't be crushed before I could get there. I ran to her like it was my life depended on it and not hers. I was happy beyond belief when she smiled weakly at me, then horrified as she grimaced in pain. I began pulling the rubble off of her, clearing her face, chest, and arms of any debris.

"My - my leg," she said. "There's something wrong with it."

Rachel's left leg was trapped under a large chunk of brick wall at an awkward angle. It was probably broken. I didn't know what I'd do when I got if free - or even what I _could_ do. The one thing that seemed obvious was that I had to get her leg free. I went to move the rock, but it was too heavy for me to lift. I managed to grab onto the end facing away from Rachel and pull enough to lean it back far enough that Rachel called out that she could see her foot. She tried to get free once I'd shifted the rock, but she couldn't move her leg.

I gave up on moving the rock and walked around to where Rachel was, trying to figure out how to free her.

"I'm going to try pulling you out, okay?" I said. Rachel nodded, her face white with pain.

I grabbed her under the arms and pulled with all my strength, struggling to get her foot free, but it only moved a few inches and her cries of pain were too much for me to bear. I stopped pulling, helped her lie back down, and tried to think of what to do next. I'd never been in a situation like this before. All I wanted was to scream for help, try to find someone that might be able to get her out, but there was no one near. Rachel was the only person I'd seen in years. There was no one to help her, nowhere to go. The only place around was the Safe Zone.

You probably grew up in a Safe Zone, so here's something they might not have told you: the guards have orders to shoot anything that moves on sight. Animals, children, fabric blowing in the wind. Yeah. I think it's a bit of an overreaction too. They claim it's to prevent gangs and diseased Deadlanders from getting close enough to be a threat, but who knows why they really do it? Maybe they're telling the truth. Maybe not. But it didn't matter at the time why they did it, or even if this particular Safe Zone followed those rules. Rachel was trapped. There was no way she could move, let alone fight off an attacking mutant animal or gang member. She'd die if I couldn't help her, and there was only one place that could possibly have anyone that could help. At that moment, I didn't care if I got shot, so long as I did everything in my power to save Rachel.

"I should be back soon," I said to Rachel, and I set off for the Safe Zone.

It took a good hour to reach the wall surrounding the Safe Zone, which was made up of a variety of materials - cinder blocks, sheet metal, chunks of rubble cemented together. I made my way along the wall, looking for a place where the wall was low enough to get over, but of course that didn't happen. Instead, I found a door, locked, with a guard platform immediately above. There was only one guard, which seemed odd.

I stared up at the guard above. I hadn't seen anyone other than Rachel in years, and for a moment I put aside my urgent quest to marvel at the sight of another human being. He was my age, maybe a bit older, but that meant nothing. He was tall, or at least he seemed to be from my position on the ground beneath him. His brown hair was buzzed short, and he held his gun awkwardly, like it was his first day on guard duty. He didn't see me at first, but then his brown eyes found mine and he began to panic, maybe unsure of what to do. Was it possible that they haven't trained him to shoot on sight? Was it really his first day? Whatever the reason, the fact that he wasn't shooting seemed too good to be true, and for Rachel's sake, I had to try asking for his help.

"I need help," I said. At first he looked startled as if he didn't expect me to be able to talk, but he still wasn't shooting, so I continued.

"Please, sir. My friend is trapped and hurt. I need someone to help me get her out. Please."

For a moment he considers what I've said, and then his face hardens, and he trains his gun on me.

"This is another gang trick, isn't it?" he accused. "Send in someone innocent-looking, lure out a guard, then attack and overtake the whole Zone."

"What?" I asked, genuinely confused.

"This is just another plot to get inside and steal our resources, isn't it?" he snarled.

"No, it's not, I swear," I say, growing desperate. I was expecting to be shot on sight, not accused of being a gang member.

"You're lying," he said, but his voice was uncertain.

I knew there was nothing I could say that would change his mind.

After a few seconds of uncomfortable silence, he spoke again, his voice much softer than before.

"I ought to kill you right now," he said, training his gun on me with renewed purpose.

How do you respond to that?

I closed my eyes, not wanting to see the look on his face when he killed me. Would it be one of renewed fury, or one of uncertainty and fear? Or worse, one of passivity, as if killing me wasn't a big deal? It didn't matter, though, did it? Not really. All I could do was hope that Rachel would die quickly and painlessly, not of dehydration or at the hands of a ruthless attacker. I heard the gun being cocked. I waited for the shot to be fired, for my life to fade.

I waited for the death I'd been evading for years, not fighting it with all my strength, but instead at peace with it.


	2. Chapter 2

**Hello, readers!Thanks for coming to the second chapter of Sparks Among the Ashes. Please review and let me know what you think/  
**

**Sorry for leaving you hanging so long. From now on I'll try for weekly updates every Friday.  
**

**I do not own Animorphs.**

* * *

My name is Jake.

Until recently, my life wasn't that exciting. I went to school, I trained, I spent free time with my friend Marco. Nothing dramatic. Nothing intense. Nothing life-threatening, certainly.

How do things change so fast? Only a few days ago, I was a normal kid, my biggest worry how to keep from falling asleep during boring guard shifts, and now . . .

I guess it all started on a guard shift, actually. I was paired with Marco, as usual, but he'd gone chasing after some girl that had walked by our station. I didn't mind too much. It happened a lot and I was used to guarding the door by myself. If we had been assigned to a more important and commonly used door, like one currently in use by scouts or foragers, then Marco running off half the time would have been a problem, but this door hadn't been opened in as long as I could remember, so there were no problems if there was only one guard. I'd memorized the procedures I should take in each of dozens of scenarios, aced every test in school, perfectly replicated maneuver after maneuver from training, so I wasn't worried about being caught unprepared.

Long story short, I was confident, maybe even cocky.

Long story in full, I'd been up in the small guard's station for a few hours and the shift was about half over. I was sitting on one of the high stools that was kept up there to keep guards on long shifts from exhausting their legs, and I could see everything, or at least I thought I could. I was looking off into the distance and my mind was wandering when I spotted a dark-skinned Deadlander girl standing on the packed earth in front of the door, looking up at me, an odd mix of urgency and awe in her eyes.

I panicked. In hindsight it was stupid. I'm one of the best-trained guards in my class, which was why I was actually guarding the wall instead of a building inside it. I could hit a target within three inches of the center nine times in ten, a pretty good accuracy for someone my age. I'd run through drills much more frightening and complicated than the appearance of a Deadlander girl, but I'd never been trained for this scenario.

In school they teach us how to read and write, multiply and divide, keep a tomato plant from getting blight and stitch a wound shut. They teach us how to follow orders, and if we show enough promise, how to give them. They teach us how to reload quickly, how to shoot mutant animals with no visible weak spots, but not what to do when a short Deadlander girl looks up at you and says, "I need help."

It's not something they expect you to have to deal with, I guess; most sane Deadlanders don't come near the Safe Zone, having figured out just how strict most guards are about how close you can get to the wall. Well, I never expected to deal with it either, but that didn't matter, because it was happening, and here was this girl looking up at me with urgency in her voice and saying, "Please, sir. My friend is trapped and hurt. I need someone to help me get her out. Please."

It took me a moment to comprehend her words. Someone trapped and injured - I could picture it happening. I was surprised this was the first person to come looking for help in such a situation. Most of the Deadlands were nothing but deathtraps waiting to be sprung.

One day, on a training exercise that took the class out into the Deadlands - wearing protective gear and surgical masks to prevent against contracting the plague, of course - a boy had gotten way too confident and had scaled a pile of rubble in order to show off. His leg got sucked into the pile and it took five hours to get him out, by which time his foot had completely lost circulation. I could see something similar happening to a Deadlander, but again, it was not what I was expecting from the girl.

I thought she'd say something along the lines of she'd wandered off from a training group and needed to get back inside, or she was someone's lost daughter, separated from them years ago. Even if she'd said that, the girl wasn't the threat I'd been expecting to deal with.

What I _had_ expected were mutant animals near the walls, their huge deformed bodies making easy targets, and gang attacks, swarms of Deadlanders piling themselves into a heap against the wall so that trained fighters could climb over them and onto the guard's station, then try to kill me and invade the Safe Zone. It struck me that this might be exactly what was happening - a gang attack, just a more covert one.

"This is another gang trick, isn't it?" I said. "Send in someone innocent-looking, lure out a guard, then attack and overtake the whole Zone."

"What?" the girl asked, appearing confused. I wasn't impressed. Gang members know how to lie, and how to act. They can act more helpless than any person alive now could ever be, and this girl looked pretty helpless. The idea grew more logical with every passing second until I was utterly sure that this girl was part of a gang.

"This is just another plot to get inside and steal our resources, isn't it?" I ask, my anger growing. Gang attacks were a major cause of death in the Safe Zone. I'd lost friends to the gangs, to the powerful, muscular fighters who managed to get through a door once every few years. I remembered the cold ruthlessness that haunted the eyes of the gang members as they lied their way inside and killed guards like they were nothing more than mutants.

This girl's eyes, though, were different.

"No, it's not, I swear," the girl said, her voice desperate. Tones of voice mean nothing - they can be faked easily. But her eyes - they seemed to plead with me.

"You're lying," I said, wishing I could be sure of what I was saying, but I wasn't sure, not anymore. Now there was some part of me that believed this girl. There was a full-on war inside me now - part of me, a large part, had been trained for years to never trust someone from the Deadlands, even a child, but another part, growing with each second, screamed to trust this girl, to help her.

"I ought to kill you right now," I said, training my gun on her as I spoke. I really should have killed her - it's what I was trained to do. Really, I should have shot her the moment I saw her. If I had, I'd be able to tell you my name, in full, and where exactly I live, and a million other things about me, too. But I wouldn't know about the danger I was in - the reasons that someone _wouldn't_ be able to give all their information. I would be inches from it without seeing it, and that would be even worse.

I cocked my gun, ready to fire, but now I wouldn't - I couldn't. There was something in her eyes, in the way she closed them and bowed her head slightly, as if accepting death, accepting that I would kill her, that made me unable to do such a thing.

I slowly lowered my gun.

"I can't help you, you know," I said, feeling that she should know that. It got her attention, at least, and her eyes flew open and locked on mine, begging me to continue.

"I can't leave my post, because then the wall would be unguarded, and then who _knows_ what might happen. Look, I don't know if you're part of a gang or what, but if you're telling the truth about your friend - "

She nods vigorously, as if afraid I'll misinterpret the gesture and turn her away. The part of me that trusts her grows.

"If you're telling the truth, I'll let you in. If you can find someone willing to leave the Safe Zone to help you, come back to this door and I'll make sure you can get through, okay?" I confirmed. She nodded again.

"Wait just a minute," I said, and climbed down the ladder to the door itself. Had I done the right thing? _Was_ there a right thing to do in a case like this? I didn't know. I wished there had been some precedent, some kids of orders on what to do in this type of situation, but this just _felt_ right. I began unlocking the door, putting keys into padlocks, moving deadbolts out of the way, undoing all fourteen locks on the door. Once it was unlocked, I opened it and found myself standing face-to-face with the Deadlander girl.

She was short, even shorter than I'd thought when I was on the wall. Her hair was cut short too, the ends frayed and uneven, and I could only guess what she cut it with. She wore a tattered shirt for some band that had been dead for a century at least and ragged jeans patched with random scraps of fabric - part of a sweatshirt here, what looked like car upholstery there. She looked at me with a mixture of gratitude and uncertainty and asked, "You're not going to call another guard on me, are you?"

I hadn't even thought to do that. Against my better judgement, I shook my head and meant it. "No, but you'd better get moving before the other person on this shift shows up," I said.

"Right. Thank you," she said, quickly throwing her arms around me. Before I could react, she rushed past me and into the heart of the Safe Zone.

I closed and locked the door, then climbed the ladder to the guard platform and picked my gun back up, trying to regain my composure, suddenly very sure that I had done exactly the wrong thing and simultaneously certain I had done exactly the right thing. Letting anyone inside the Safe Zone without them showing valid ID or at least three officials being present was strictly against procedure. But she was just a girl. A girl my age, maybe. A girl who had managed to survive out there for years without any help. So who was I to turn her away when she needed it? Then I pictured the girl's face, the warmth of her arms as she hugged me with gratitude, the relief that washed over her face when I didn't shoot her, and know I never could have been the cause of her death. I was pretty sure that a gang member wouldn't hug someone who let them inside. Thank them, yes, but in most gangs physical contact with non-members was cause for death. But even that bit of confidence didn't help me any. There was nothing I could change now. There was no going back to the way it had been before, with the Deadlander girl outside the walls and the Safe Zone, well, _safe_ from anything she might try to do.

My world had been shaken, changed. I was a different person than I had been an hour before.

Little did I know how much more I would change by the end of the day.


	3. Chapter 3

**Welcome readers, and a special hello to fellow Tobias fans! Guess who's narrating this chapter? I won't spoil it any further, though you'll know by reading the first sentence.  
**

**Right now I'm just re-doing book one (sort of), getting all the Animorphs together and such. After that, I might start doing other books in the series in this style. If there's a particular book you'd like me to write in this style, please let me know and I'll try my best to do it. **

**I do not own Animorphs.**

* * *

My name is Tobias.

I can't tell you my last name, couldn't, even if I knew what it was, which I don't. You see, I'm an orphan. I think. My parents aren't here, and that's what matters. My mom never bothered telling the woman working the front desk of the orphanage what my last name was when she dropped me off, so I never knew it.

But even if I did, I couldn't tell you. If you knew, if anyone reading this found out who I was . . . it would be worse for humanity than the plague. All I can say for now is that if they found me - found _us -_ humanity would be done for_._

Pretty big deal, right?

A week ago, I never would have expected to be dealing with anything as important as that. Life was simple, easy. Everything was laid out, planned ahead of time, every day predictable. Wake up, go to school, work at the greenhouse, go back to the orphanage, go to sleep, repeat.

Just between you and me, I kind of _like_ how unpredictable things have become. There's only so much routine a person can take. Though, to be fair, I kind of owe the new way of life to the routine of the old.

Ironic, right?

But really, the minute my life changed, I was following my routine, walking back to the orphanage from a long shift at the greenhouse. My mind was wandering, and I guess my eyes were too, because I saw something that I'd never seen before.

In the middle of the busy street, doing her best not to be crushed by the people walking by her on either side, was a short girl with dark skin begging passerby for help.

"Please, sir, I need help. My friend - " she said, but by then, the man she was talking to has passed. She tried again, on a woman this time.

"Please help me, please come with me, my friend is dying - "

But the woman ignored her too.

I could understand why they ignored her. People have enough problems around here without stopping to deal with someone else's. Still, I'd been the one being ignored enough times that I decided to walk over to the girl and see what kind of help she needed. As I walked up to her, her eyes latched onto mine and I saw a desperate hope in them.

"Please," she said. "Please come with me. My friend is trapped and I can't get her out by myself."

"Where's she trapped?" I asked, curious. There's not exactly a ton of places in the Safe Zone where someone could be trapped. But, of course, her friend wasn't in the Safe Zone.

"In the Deadlands," the girl said, her voice soft, pleading, afraid I'd walk away.

That was it. The moment my life changed, because I decided that I would help this girl. There were no fireworks, no flash of lightning, no anything. The swarms of people around me continued shoving me and jabbering away, their voices mixing into one big indistinguishable chattering flow of noise, and the girl and I stood there, not talking for a moment.

"I'll help you," I said. Her face lit up with a mixture of shock and joy.

"Okay," she said. "Okay, come with me."

Her hand grabbed my wrist, locked on tight, like she was afraid I'd change my mind and leave her. She wove through the crowds of people and tangled streets. After a few minutes, the crowd thinned, and we came to one of the Safe Zone's exits, though I'd never been to this one before. It was out of the way, which I guess was a good thing, for a few reasons. One of them was that the door had only one guard - most have two, and convincing two people to let us out would have been a lot harder than just convincing one. It turned out, though, that we didn't have to convince the guard anyway. He merely glanced at us, then climbed down from his post to unlock the door.

As he was fitting keys into locks, I realized that I knew this guard, from school. It was Jake. I'd had him in a couple classes and we'd never really been close, but he was a pretty decent guy. He'd stopped some guys from beating me up once or twice. I wasn't surprised he was guarding the door - he'd always been at the top of any class that covered some aspect of guarding. I _was_ surprised when he pulled the door open and gestured for us to go, though - that was something guards weren't trained to do, and Jake always followed his training.

"Good luck," he said to the girl as she exited.

I followed the girl out the door, which shut behind us, and into the Deadlands. I was nervous about being out in the Deadlands without the protection of a gun or even a surgical mask to prevent me from getting the plague, but there was something exhilarating about it as well. I was doing the forbidden; I was outside the walls; I was free, for the first time I could remember. Instead of working for hours and following a schedule, orders, anyone with more authority than me, I was in charge of myself, and I liked it. For a while neither of us talked and we just made our way through the rubble that litters most Gray Zone Deadlands. We walked far enough that the Safe Zone shrunk to an outline on the horizon, and my exhilaration dissolved into worry as I wondered just how far out this "friend" was.

"How much farther?" I asked the girl.

"Not very far," the girl said.

"I'm sorry, but I don't know your name," I said. It felt wrong to keep thinking of her as "the girl" at this point - I felt like I should know the name of the person who'd led me out of the Safe Zone and into freedom.

"I'm Cassie," she said.

"I'm Tobias," I said.

"Well, Tobias, it's nice to meet you, and thank you so much for helping me," Cassie said. "My friend's right over - oh no."

She had climbed over the crest of the latest pile of rubble a bit ahead of me, so at first all I could see was Cassie running down the other side. I sped up, climbing to the top of the pile, and I saw what had made Cassie so alarmed.

Cassie's friend lay on the ground, her left leg clearly pinned under a huge chunk of brick wall. Her short blonde hair lay fanned out around her head like a halo - the kind you'd see around an angel's head in a History textbook. Her skin was pale, and her chest rose and fell rapidly with her breathing. She looked unconscious until her eyes flickered open as Cassie ran over to her - I got the feeling Cassie had left her friend in much better condition. They talked for a moment in hushed tones while I stood there, feeling useless, then Cassie spoke up.

"You move the wall," she said. "Just sort of pull it - it almost rolls. Once it's off her foot, I'll pull her out."

"Okay," I said, and moved around to get the best grip on the wall. I grabbed it, trying to find handholds that wouldn't break off. Eventually I had a solid grip.

"Ready?" Cassie asked.

"Ready," I said, and I pulled on the wall. It was heavier than anything I'd ever had to lift - but it did roll a bit. I pulled it back, rolling it off of the girl's leg. Sweat broke out on my forehead and the back of my neck.

"More!" Cassie shouted. I strained to pull the wall back farther. I leaned backwards. I dug my feet into the ground and pulled. I overworked every muscle in my body, trying to pull the hunk of bricks back far enough to free the girl. Slowly, the chunk of bricks rolled back farther, and I could hear Cassie pulling her friend out against the smaller chunks of rubble. I held the wall in place until I heard Cassie call, "She's out!", and only then did I release it. It fell back into its original position with a heavy thump.

I walked around the wall chunk to find Cassie kneeling on the ground next to the other girl, who was now sitting propped up against another pile of rubble, looking around with unfocused eyes. The tight pants she wore let me see her left shin bending sideways, broken. The light blue fabric was stained bright red with blood, and suddenly I saw the red blood everywhere - on the ground, on Cassie's hands as she tried to staunch the flow, oozing out from under the bricks that had crushed the girl's leg. It still oozed from her leg, trickling down the gray rubble, staining the dust and spreading into a puddle on the ground.

So much red.

"She needs a doctor," I said, stating the obvious. "Someone needs to stop the bleeding, and then she needs a cast for that leg."

"I know, I know," Cassie said. "But the only doctor would be in the Safe Zone, and she can't go there."

"Why not?" I asked.

"She's a Deadlander," Cassie said. "We both are. I'm lucky the guard let me in to get help for her at all, there's no way I'll find someone to let her in the be treated. And even if someone would let us in, she can't walk that far."

"I'll carry her," I said. "I'll vouch for her, too. I've got an ID, they'll have to let us in."

I'm not really sure why I said it, but then again, I'm not really sure about anything I did that day. I just looked at the girl on the ground and knew I needed to help her, so I did.

"Are you sure?" Cassie asked, clearly hoping I wouldn't change my mind.

In response, I knelt and picked the girl up off the ground, trying not to worsen her injuries and cause her any more pain. One of my hands went under her knees, the other behind her shoulders. She wasn't hard to carry - she was tall, but not heavy. Her blue eyes drifted, not looking at any one thing for long. Her blonde hair shone through the dirt covering it. She was beautiful. She was dying.

"I'm sure," I said.

The walk back to the Safe Zone seemed to take much longer than the walk from it had. It might have been because I was carrying the girl, and that slowed me down. It might have been because we knew that if we didn't get her back to the Safe Zone fast enough, she would die. That knowledge alone made every second into an eternity, and I could only hope that the girl I was carrying wouldn't come to her senses and have to deal with that knowledge as well. Halfway through the journey, her eyes fluttered shut, and I worried that she'd died, but her chest continued to rise and fall with her breathing.

I could see the path we had walked by the trail of red that dripped from the girl's leg, her life flowing over her legs, my arm, onto the ground, gone forever. Irreplaceable.

I stopped only once, to rip some fabric off my pants and tie it over the wound, hoping it would slow the flow of blood.

We arrived back at the same door we'd left through and found that Jake was still the only guard. As soon as he saw us, he stiffened. Once he spotted the girl in my arms, his eyes widened in alarm, he froze for a moment, and then he bolted down the ladder and quickly opened the door.

"Hurry up!" he said, his voice low and urgent. "The next shift takes over in only a couple minutes!"

Cassie ran through the door, and I followed, moving as fast as I could with the girl in my arms. As soon as I was inside, Jake slammed the door shut and frantically locked it.

"Go!" he hissed through his teeth, jerking his head to the streets leading away from the door, surrounded by tall apartment buildings. Cassie darted into one of them and I followed, turning to the door just in time to see Jake resume his post and two other guards show up. The guards talked to Jake for a minute, joking and laughing, then traded spots. Jake climbed down the ladder back to the ground and walked over to the street where Cassie and I stood, hiding in the shadows. He was acting casual, I assumed for the benefit of the new guards. Once we were out of their sight, he grabbed Cassie's shoulder.

"My friend needs to go to the hospital," Cassie said before Jake could say anything. Jake looked at the girl in my arms, nodded, and said, "Fine. Follow me. I know the way."

Jake led us through several streets, making turns and trying to avoid the biggest throngs of people. When we did encounter people, most of them saw Jake in his guard uniform and me carrying an unconscious girl with blood pouring from a broken leg and got out of the way. Unfortunately, that didn't last.

Only a dozen or so blocks from the hospital, I heard a voice from behind me.

"Hey, Jake, wait up!" someone called. I turned my head and saw another kid I recognized. Sort of. It was Marco, Jake's best friend, running to catch up with us.

At that time, I didn't know Marco too well. All I knew about him was that he liked to tell jokes, did pretty well in class, and hung out with Jake a lot. He slowed down when he was next to Jake, resting his hand on Jake's shoulder, and said, "Hey man, I thought you were going to wait for me!"

Jake rolled his eyes. "I did, or don't the three hours on shift without you count?"

On shift without you? Marco must have been assigned to guard the door with Jake and taken off. Good thing for us he did, otherwise we probably would have been stuck in the Deadlands.

"Anyway, I'm bringing them to the hospital," Jake said, nodding his head towards me and Cassie. Marco looked at us, saw the girl in my arms, and said, "Whoa! Who's the hot girl?"

"That's Rachel," Cassie said.

Rachel. I looked down at her face. Even though when she woke up, she'd be in pain, even though her life was slowly seeping out of her leg in the form of blood, even though she still might die in the next few hours, right now she looked peaceful, serene.

Rachel. The name was pretty, with a bit of a bite to it. It suited her.

Jake pushed open the doors to the hospital and held them open as I carried Rachel inside, with Cassie following and Marco trailing behind. Jake led me to a counter of sorts where patients were admitted. A grumpy woman in her forties with graying hair sat behind it, and she did not look at all pleased to see Rachel.

"Who's this?" she asked before Jake could say anything.

"That's Rachel. I'm pretty sure her leg's broken, she'll need it to be set," Jake said.

"She's lost a lot of blood," I added.

The woman thought for a moment, then said, "No."

"Why not?" Cassie cried.

"Because," the woman said. "We're practically overflowing, and I've never seen this girl before. She might be a Deadlander for all I know."

Cassie swallowed hard.

"She's not," Jake said to the woman. I was impressed that he could lie so well, and that he _would_ lie to save the life of a Deadlander girl.

"Well, how do you know? This is probably some girl who stumbled up to the wall and claimed to need medical attention just to get inside. Maybe she got mauled by a mutant. Maybe her gang injured her on purpose. I don't know, I don't care, and I won't treat her," the woman said.

"No, she's not a gang member, she's not some random girl," Jake said, then he paused, thinking of some way to prove it.

"She's my cousin," he said. "She doesn't come around here a lot, mostly works in the greenhouses. But she knocked a table of plants onto her leg and broke it."

The woman sat there for a moment, thinking. Deciding if she believed what Jake told her, which I knew was a lie but she didn't. Deciding if Rachel would live or die.

"Your cousin?" she asked, and Jake nodded.

"Fine," she said. "Fine. I'll admit your cousin Rachel. You know that if you're found to be lying you'll lose your position?"

"Good thing I'm not lying, then," Jake said, showing no sign that he was.

"Bring her this way," the woman told me. I followed the woman down a hallway and into a tiny hospital room. There were two small beds, each with about two feet of space around it in all directions. Both were empty. The woman gestured to the bed on the left, and I set Rachel down on it, gently.

"I'll be right back with a doctor," the woman said, leaving the room.

As my arms were out from under Rachel, free for the first time in hours, I noticed that they were aching.

But Rachel was there on the hospital bed, about to be treated. She would live.

The pain didn't matter.


	4. Chapter 4

**Another Friday, another chapter. Again, please feel free to send requests for books you'd like to see me write in this world. Otherwise, I'm going to pick at random, though we won't have the team all set up for quite a few more me know ahead of time, though, so I can read the book and see if it will work!  
**

**I'm sorry to say that next week there won't be an update; I am very busy at the moment and the only reason this is up is because I had it written ahead of time. The week after that should have one, though.**

**Please review!**

**I do not own Animorphs.**

* * *

My name is Marco.

Just Marco, for now. I couldn't tell you my last name even if it mattered, which it doesn't, because there are much bigger things to be worried about. Like the fact that my best friend might actually be insane.

Okay, I admit I left my guard post to try and strike up a conversation with a girl. Can you blame me? She was cute, she hadn't rejected me yet . . . I totally had a chance. In fact, she even agreed to go on a date with me. Naturally, I was pretty happy - this girl was gorgeous _and_ funny - hard to find these days. But then I made my way back, hoping to catch Jake and tell him about it, only to find him leading Tobias, the shy loner from my History class, who was carrying an unconscious hot girl I'd never met, _and_ another girl I'd also never seen before to the hospital. I didn't think it was anything at the time - there were plenty of people I hadn't met before in the Safe Zone, although I thought I would've seen the hot girl before now if she was anywhere near. Still, not too big a deal, he was just getting them here because they'd gotten lost or something and then he'd ditch them and we could do something with our free time.

Instead, I watched on in horror as Jake claimed that the hot girl - Rachel - was his cousin.

I knew she wasn't his cousin - he'd never mentioned her, I'd never seen her. I would have known about her if she was his cousin. She wasn't. So he had lied to the woman working at the hospital. She told him, flat out, that he'd lose his position as a guard if he was found to be lying. Still, he stuck with the story, and for what? To help some girl he didn't even know.

He was insane, and I told him so as soon as the woman left.

"Jake," I said, my tone urgent but my voice quiet so that no one would overhear us. "You are insane! Lying about something like that? You deserve to lose your position. it's almost as bad as actually letting someone in from the Deadlands!"

He looked at me, then nervously glanced at the hallway the woman and Tobias had walked down. He looked away for way too long.

"You didn't actually - ?" I asked. He kept looking down the hallway. "Oh no," I said. "Did you?"

Jake glanced over at the girl who was still conscious, the short one with dark skin.

"Do you think I can tell him, Cassie?" he asked her.

"I think he'll figure it out one way or another. You might as well tell him," the girl - Cassie - said.

Jake turned to me.

"Jake?" I asked. "Did you _seriously_ bring someone in from the Deadlands?"

"Well, I didn't exactly 'bring her in', not really," Jake said. "I just opened the door."

"Holy - you '_just opened the door_'?" I asked, furious. "_Just opened the door_ to the possibility of a gang member, or a spy, or the plague! You _know_ we can't survive another plague, Jake! Are you insane?"

"Hold on a second," Jake said.

"No! I will not 'hold on a second' to listen to someone who's insane try to explain his reasoning! You went against everything we were ever taught, Jake! You've put the whole Safe Zone at risk!"

"Don't you think I know that?!" Jake said. "There's nothing we can do now, though."

"Yes, there is," I said. "We could get that girl checked out right now and put her back out into the Deadlands. You wouldn't have to lose your post, and she'd be gone."

"Marco," Jake said, his tone forceful. "We can't do that. This girl is injured. She needs medical attention and she needs to heal."

I opened my mouth to try to get him to see just how crazy all this was, but he cut me off, talking quietly so Cassie wouldn't hear us.

"If it was your mother out there in the Deadlands with a broken leg, wouldn't you want someone to let her in?" he asked.

His question made me stop, think. My mom had gone out on a forage trip several years ago. She had never come back. Everyone said she was dead, but I'd always held onto hope that she'd survived, somehow, that one day she would come back. Over the years, that hope had dwindled until it was almost nonexistent. Still, if she was out there somewhere, if she had survived and broken her leg, I _would_ want someone to open the door for her. This girl was someone's daughter, she had parents and maybe siblings. Someone cared about her. Someone would have wanted her to be let in.

"Fine," I said. "We won't kick her out. But where is she going to stay? Your apartment? I don't think so, and she's _certainly_ not coming to mine." Jake's gaze drifted.

"You're right," he said. "We'll have to figure out where she'll stay."

"Hold on," I said. "What's this _we_ stuff? _You_ are the one who let her in!"

"Yeah, but you weren't there to stop me," he countered. "You're still accountable."

I fumed. He was right.

"Fine," I said. "We'll need to figure out what to do with her."

"We should wait," Cassie said. "Until Rachel wakes up, at least. She should have some say in this."

"You know what? I'll just leave. Come get me when she's out," I said.

I stormed out of the hospital and onto the streets, pushing through the thinning crowds of people to go somewhere, anywhere. That morning, my life had been normal, my problems small. Then Jake let in a Deadlander girl and everything got difficult. Now I look back and see that my problems were still pretty small, but I hadn't known anything bigger. I was going to be having a say in a Deadlander girl's life. I was going to be standing up for her, for her cover story. I was going to be risking my life for someone I'd never met. Sure, she was hot, but she was _not _worth risking my life for. I _needed_ the money I made from being a guard to support myself and my dad. I couldn't lose my job. I couldn't afford to. My dad and I would be in community housing, fighting for space with thousands of others who couldn't afford rent - and the rats, of course. I couldn't let that happen. My dad wouldn't be able to take that. So I needed to keep my position.

But Jake was my best friend. I couldn't give him up, and I couldn't let him lose his position either. And he was right - I was partially accountable. I owed it to him to help and decide what to do about the girl.

But the girl - I was risking my life for her. I didn't like it, and I was determined not to like her, either.


	5. Chapter 5

**Hello readers! Sorry that there was no weekly for a couple weeks, but here's one now!**

**I have discovered and tested something that is very bad for Animorphs fanfic writers: the "more than" and "less than" marks that usually mark thoughtspeech do not show up in fanfiction documents! Luckily, thoughtspeech won't show up for a couple chapters, so I'll figure out some way to distinguish it from normal speech or inner monologue between now and then. If you have any ideas, please let me know!  
**

**Please continue to request any books you would like to see - I will have to know well ahead of time which ones you'd like to see in order to re-read the books and then figure out if and how I can write them into this story. Right now I'm working off of Poparena's Opinionated Animorphs Episode Guide (as I no longer own any of the books except #33) for plot and stuff, but I will be going to the library shortly to check out some of the Animorphs books I'll need for details, and will be able to get any requested books then and get a head start on re-writing them for this story.  
**

**I do not own Animorphs. **

* * *

My name is Rachel.

Unlike the others, I don't have a real last name. Officially I do, but the name I have on paper isn't really mine. Even though that last name isn't mine, though, I can't tell you what it is. Why?

You'll find out soon enough.

On the day that I got that last name, I woke up feeling strange. My skin felt weirdly sensitive and exposed, and there was some kind of soft but stiff fabric rubbing against my arms and right leg. I couldn't feel my left leg, though, and when I tried to move that leg, I couldn't. I panicked, thinking that Cassie had cut off my leg to get me out from under the bricks. My eyes flew open, and everything I saw was white - white lights, white walls, white fabric covering my body when I looked down at myself, pale whitish skin when I lifted my arm and pulled the fabric aside, and a big chunk of something white around my left leg. It took me a few moments to work out what must have happened. Cassie had somehow gotten me out of the rubble, and brought me somewhere clean with supplies, where someone had put this thing on my leg.

I could remember a few blurry, confusing moments. Being carried by a blond boy - the first boy I'd seen in years who wasn't part of a gang. A looming shape on the horizon - the Safe Zone. Hurried voices exchanging orders as people dressed in identical clothes stood over me. Had Cassie managed to get me into the Safe Zone to be treated? If so, where was she? Had the guards shot her?

I forced myself to sit up and fought off a wave of nausea. My head began a steady throbbing as I looked around the room, trying to spot Cassie. Even though the room was small and I scanned every inch of it, there was no sign of her. The last place I looked was right by the door, and I jumped when I saw a boy standing there, by the foot of my bed, watching me. He looked startled as soon as he saw me looking at him.

"Who are you?" I asked. "And, more importantly, where's Cassie?"

"I think she's outside," the boy said, not answering my first question.

"Why isn't she here?" I asked.

"She's not allowed to come back in. They don't really like guests to see the patients," he elaborated. "But we can go outside and see her, if you want. The doctor said you could go as soon as you woke up. In fact, I get the impression he wish you'd left earlier."

"They don't really like people, do they?" I asked, without being entirely sure who "they" were. The boy laughed.

"I think they're just busy," the boy said. "Want some help standing up?"

I did, but I didn't know this boy, and I wanted to see if I could do it myself. I swung my legs to one side of the bed - the side closest to the door - and slipped forward, landing on my feet but almost immediately losing my balance and toppling forward. My hands grabbed at the air, trying to find something to break my fall, and landed on the boy, who had stepped forward to keep me from falling.

I blushed. I hadn't come this close to anyone other than Cassie in years. He seemed to understand that I was uncomfortable and held me at arm's length. I got my first good look at his face. He had green eyes, wonderful green eyes. His blond hair was buzzed short and his skin was subtly tanned from the sun.

"If you want, you can lean on me on the way out, until you get used to walking on your leg," he said. I looked down, remembering the white thing on my leg, but ended up noticing my clothing. I was dressed in the same red shirt I'd been wearing for the past couple months - we didn't exactly get much opportunity to find new clothes or change in the Deadlands - but instead of my tight jeans, I was wearing an off-white skirt. It had an elastic waistband and fell just above my knees, and there was plenty of room for my legs to move. The hospital probably put me in it for practicality reasons - after all, skinny jeans don't work when one of your legs is covered in an inch of hard white stuff - but it was the most perfect thing I had ever worn. I spent a moment utterly falling in love with the skirt, with the way it hung about my body, with the uneven creaminess of the color, with everything about it before I realized I still had no idea what the hard stuff on my leg was.

"What's this stuff on my leg for, anyway?" I asked the boy.

He looked at me like he couldn't believe I'd asked the question.

"It's a cast," he said. "The doctors put it on you because the rubble that fell on you broke the bones in your leg. The cast keeps the bones in the right positions to heal."

"Oh," I said, seeing how it could work. In the Deadlands we would sometimes do something like that with arms, but it was much more lightweight and simpler. We just took a couple of straight pieces of rubble or things from inside one of the partially standing houses and bound them to the arm with some cloth, then tied the arm in place against the body. It wasn't as nice-looking as the cast, but it did okay.

"I'm Tobias, by the way," the boy said. "You asked earlier, and I didn't answer right away. Sorry."

"Don't be sorry," I said. "I wanted to know where Cassie was more than what your name was, anyway."

There's a pause, like he's expecting something. It hits me that I didn't tell him my name.

"Oh!" I say. "I didn't tell you my name either. I'm Rachel."

"Well, it's nice to officially meet you, Rachel," he said.

Officially? What did he mean, officially? Unless . . . unless he was the one from my memories, the one who carried me in from the Deadlands. Could it be him? My memory was pretty blurry, and I couldn't tell.

"Are you the one . . . " I said, trailing off before I could ask the question, but he answered it anyway.

"Yeah," he said. "That was me. Come on, I'm sure Cassie can't wait to see you awake again."


	6. Chapter 6

**Sorry for the late chapter, and for the bad news in the following Author's Note.**

**It turns out that, for several reasons, I will not have access to the Animorphs books from my local library as I had previously thought, and can't buy them either. I'm now working entirely off of poparena's Opinionated Animorphs Book Guide, my one remaining Animorphs book (#33), the free samples of the books on amazon (usually just the first chapter or two), and whatever I can find on various wikis (which are not famously reliable). Please excuse any OOC moments and any holes in the details of the invasion and the various aliens. If something is way off, please let me know, and I'll try to fix it. **

**If anyone has access to Animorphs #1 - The Invasion and would be willing to type out and send me a few details - everything Elfangor and Visser Three say and a description of the morphing cube and the aliens would be great - I would really appreciate it. I will need this info for the next chapter, so if you own the book or you can get access to it, please let me know ASAP. If you need some time to get to the book, but can get it, please tell me, and I will put off the next chapter until you can get stuff to me. **

**Also, a description of the Yeerk Pool would be really helpful if you can get one, but it's not as urgently needed as the Elfangor stuff.**

**I'm really sorry for not asking for this earlier, but I thought I could get the books - and that all this alien stuff was a couple chapters away (right up until the moment I checked my outline). **

**On the bright side, this story is not enormously reliant on the books (the next chapter being one of the few exceptions, as it will contain the specifics of morphing and the Yeerk invasion), so what I can find online should be enough for most of it. **

**Thank you for reading through this huge Author's Note - I sincerely hope that the chapter that follows is worth it. **

**UPDATE: Sorry for reposting this, I had to add a couple things to the story. **

**Also, a million thanks to iris129 for sending me details and a place to get more!**

**I do not own Animorphs.**

* * *

My name is Cassie.

And I have never been so happy to see another person as I was when Rachel came limping out of the hospital. She was leaning heavily on Tobias, the boy who had carried her to safety, and was trying to figure out how to walk with her leg in a cast, but she was here. She was alive.

I couldn't help myself. I ran forward to meet her and hugged her. Her free arm, the one that wasn't using Tobias for balance, wrapped around me.

I pulled back first, checking to make sure she was actually okay, and actually Rachel. She was.

I couldn't stop smiling.

"It's good to see you again," I said.

"Same here," she said, and she was smiling too. I couldn't help thinking of how I had last seen her - passed out, bleeding heavily from her broken leg, skin pale from blood loss - and my smile dimmed a bit. Rachel seemed to know what I was thinking, because she reached her free hand out to touch my shoulder.

"Hey," she said. "Cassie, I'm fine."

"I know," I said. She _was _fine, thanks to Jake and Tobias. Still, it was good to hear her say it.

I guess our reunion was louder than I thought, because a moment later, Jake walked up to us with Marco trailing behind him. Rachel looked a bit scared to see two more strangers, but she saw that Tobias and I weren't afraid, and the worried look slipped right off her face.

"Listen, we need to figure out somewhere for you guys to stay," Jake said.

"Wait - you mean we won't be heading back out?" I asked.

"No way," Jake said. "I might not know as much as you do about the Deadlands, but I'm pretty sure Rachel wouldn't last long with her leg in a cast."

He was letting us stay. He wasn't going to make us go out into the Deadlands again, he was going to let us stay here, he was going to make sure Rachel was healed and safe.

I hugged him before I could think about it. He was just being so nice to us, to me; I couldn't help it. He held his body stiff while I hugged him, and I quickly pulled away.

"Sorry," I whispered. He smiled.

"It's fine," he said.

"So where could we stay?" Rachel asked.

"Do you really want to talk about this _here_?" Marco asked - the first time he'd actually spoken to Rachel and me. He dropped his voice to a whisper. "The hospital has surveillance cameras everywhere. So do most places. If you guys haven't been caught on camera talking about the Deadlands yet, trust me, you don't want to be."

"Well, we need to talk about this," Jake said.

"Do you know a safe place to talk?" I asked Marco. He scowled when I talked to him, but then he thought for a moment.

"Only place you can be sure isn't bugged is outside the Safe Zone, in the Deadlands," he said.

Jake seemed a bit surprised that Marco had suggested the Deadlands.

"You sure there's nowhere inside the walls?" Jake asked Marco.

"There probably is, but most of the places that aren't bugged are places you couldn't get into," Marco said. "You want to talk safely, you've got to do it outside the walls."

I noticed that Marco wasn't including himself in any of the plans. It was all _you, you,_ _you_. No mention of _we_.

"Okay, so we need to get outside," Jake said. "I don't suppose you're on better terms with any on-duty door guards than I am?"

"Jake, no offense, but I'm on better terms with _everyone_ than you are," Marco joked.

The two of them talked for a while, eventually deciding to try leaving through the door they'd been guarding earlier. Marco led the five of us - Tobias was still helping Rachel walk - through a maze of narrow streets paved with chunks of rubble until we were within sight of the door.

Marco held out his arm to stop us from moving forward. He pressed a finger to his lips, telling us to be quiet. Then he casually strolled out of the alley and struck up a conversation with the guards on duty. I couldn't make out the words, but after a few moments, I could hear laughter. There were a few minutes of joking around, and the guards came walking down the street. One girl and one boy, both of them about my age, wearing the same gray uniform that Jake and Marco wore, walked right past the alley where we hid. I pressed against the wall, scared that they would see me, terrified of what they would do if they did. I guess the shadows in the alley were pretty deep, because neither of them saw us.

"Take your time!" Marco shouted after them. "I've got you covered."

"You're the best, Marco!" the guy called back.

When the guards were far enough away, Marco came back over to the alley. He held a set of keys, which I guessed were for the doors, in his right hand.

"It's clear, but I'm not sure for how long," he said. "You'll have to move fast."

We all rushed over to the door. Marco swiftly unlocked it, fitting one key in, twisting it, pulling it out and using another. In what seemed like no time at all, he was pulling the door open, and Tobias led us out. Jake came out last, and Marco started to shut the door behind him.

"No way, man," Jake said. "You're a part of this whether you like it or not. You're coming too."

Marco shook his head, but Jake grabbed Marco's sleeve and pulled him out.

"What about the door?" Marco asked. "We'll need someone to lock it, and then unlock it when we get back."

"We'll just leave it unlocked," Jake said.

"What?!" Marco exploded. "Do you know what could happen if we do that?!"

"It's just for five minutes," Jake said, pulling the door mostly shut. He stuck a small chunk of rubble, about the thickness of my thumb, into the crack to keep the door from closing all the way.

"Come on," Jake said, again grabbing Marco's sleeve and leading us farther away from the wall to talk. He stopped as soon as the wall was out of sight behind the looming remains of a towering building.

"So, what are we going to do?" Rachel asked. "And what makes it so hard to figure out?"

"You're from the Deadlands," Jake answered. "No one's seen you before, no one knows you. That's going to make it pretty hard to do much in the Safe Zone. People recognize the people that live and work near them. They won't recognize you, so we can't just seamlessly slip you into society."

Everyone was silent, trying to think of a way to get us into Safe Zone society unnoticed. No one was able to think of anything for a few minutes.

Tobias spoke up.

"The orphanages are always taking people," he said. "Parents are dying all the time. Maybe Rachel and Cassie are from a different part of the Safe Zone. Maybe their parents just died, and now they need to go to an orphanage. Facing all their friends and all the people they know after losing their family? That would be hard. Maybe they decided to move across the Safe Zone when they had to go to an orphanage. It's not as comfy as The Collective, but they're more likely to go unnoticed."

There was a pause as everyone, or at least those who actually knew the Safe Zone, thought this over.

Marco was the first to reply.

"That's actually a pretty good idea," he said. He seemed hesitant to praise Tobias, but Tobias didn't gloat.

"I could see it working," Jake agreed. "If we spread the story around a bit, I bet people wouldn't question it."

"So we're orphans," I said, wanting to get the story straight. "Our parents died recently, and when we had to find an orphanage, we decided to find one on the other side of the Safe Zone, so we wouldn't have to face the people we knew."

"Exactly," Marco said.

Rachel smiled.

"I can remember that," she said.

"I just have one question," I said, and everyone tensed, waiting for a question that would find a flaw in the one and only plan.

"What's the Collective?" I asked. Tobias had thrown the term out so casually, I was sure it was common knowledge in the Safe Zone. Common knowledge that Rachel and I didn't share with the others.

"That's your big question?" Marco asked. I nodded, and he laughed.

"The Collective's a second Safe Zone, sort of," Jake said. "There's a bunch of people working on building it, and it's not finished yet, but parts are done. It's supposed to be a better Safe Zone; more living space, better food, higher-paying jobs; that sort of thing. They have a bunch of open-house events so that people that want to move there can take a look ahead of time. I've been there a few times; it's really nice. My brother moved there a few months ago."

"Okay," I said. "Good to know."

"So everything's settled?" Jake asks, and we all nod.

"Good. Let's hope the plague hasn't leaked in through the door, or Marco will throw a fit," Jake said.

"You know that - " Marco began to say, but Jake cut him off.

"Yes, I know it's important. But this was important too," Jake said, and he began walking back to the Safe Zone. The rest of us followed.

Tobias and Rachel were hanging towards the back. I wasn't entirely sure why, but I wanted to keep an eye on Rachel, so I decided to hang back as well.

That meant I was closest to Tobias when he spotted it.

"Look," Tobias said.

"What is it?" Jake asked.

"Just look," Tobias said.

We all looked up.

Against the black sky, I saw a bright blue-white flash of light flying through the air, incredibly fast. As I watched, it gradually slowed, but it was still going faster than anything I'd ever seen.

"What is it?" Marco asked. He looked at me, then at Rachel, like he expected one of us to have the answer, like it was something we saw every day in the Deadlands.

"No idea," Rachel said.

"Whatever it is, I think it's safe to assume it's not good," I said. In the Deadlands, anything you couldn't identify was instantly a threat.

"Okay, but what is it?" Jake asked.

"Guys? It's coming this way," Rachel said. I looked up, and sure enough, the light looked like it was heading right for us.

"How do you know? It might be heading somewhere else," Marco pointed out.

"Look at it," Rachel said. "It's coming this way."

"What do we do?" Tobias asked.

Everyone turned their heads to look at me.

"What?" I asked. "I don't know what to do any more than you guys do."

Everyone reluctantly looked away. I looked up again, and the light was definitely heading for us. I watched its progress while the others argued.

"Should we run back to the Safe Zone?" Jake asked.

"No way!" Marco said. "If that thing's targeted at us, and we run into the Safe Zone, then that light will follow us there."

"And?" Rachel asked.

"And we don't know what it's going to do. What if it destroys the Safe Zone? What if it's the new plague, or mutation, or other disaster, and we're the ones that let it into the Safe Zone?" Marco said.

"I don't think there's time to make it, anyway," I said. The light had almost reached us.

"So we're just going to stand here, wait and see what this thing does to us?" Rachel asked.

"We don't have any other options," Jake said.

So we stood there, waiting to see what the light would do.


	7. Chapter 7

**Thanks to everyone who has sent me details about this part of the story - iris129 and (especially) krikanalo, without whom this chapter wouldn't exist.  
**

**Sorry for the long wait, but it's here now! And it's quite lengthy! Probably because it's the infodump chapter!  
**

**Also, this story probably won't have weekly updates anymore. I didn't write any chapters ahead of time, and now I have school, including some classes with lots of writing in the homework. Updates might come once every two weeks instead, or I might write a few chapters ahead and then update weekly. Either way, there probably won't be a chapter next Friday. Sorry, since this ends on a cliffhanger.  
**

**Side note: brackets [like this] will denote thought-speak.**

**I do not own Animorphs.**

* * *

My name is Jake.

Nothing I had ever trained for had prepared me for this.

I didn't want to admit it, but as that light headed straight for us, I was scared. No, scared isn't the word. Terrified. I knew that the light might kill us, that we could all be dead in a moment.

As the light got closer, I could see that it wasn't really a light at all. It was some kind of flying thing, made out of some kind of metal I'd never seen before. It wasn't very big or anything, but I was still terrified. The thing began to hover over us, and the air went all weird. I looked over at the others, and Rachel's hair - the longest of anyone in the group, even though it only went to her chin - was standing up, pointing out in all directions. The metal thing began to lower itself right in front of us.  
As it got lower, I could make out more details. The front end - what I assumed was the front end, since it was pointed towards us - was a pod, shaped like an elongated sphere. Extending from the back of the pod was a long, narrow shaft. There were two crooked, stubby winglike things, and on the end of each wing was a long tube that glowed bright blue on the back end. That was where the light had been coming from.

None of that was too threatening, but there was one part of the ship that assured me it was still a threat. There was a sort of tail- a mean-looking tail that curved up and forward, coming to a point that looked as sharp as a needle. I couldn't take my eyes off of it. No one has something like that for decoration. It was a weapon.

The thing settled onto the ground on a relatively clear patch in between a shredded earthmover and the rusted remains of a crane - remnants of the initial construction of the wall. The blue lights shut off. Rachel's hair fell back against her head.

For a minute, all we could do was stare at it, waiting to see what it would do.

It just sat there, almost innocent-looking, like it hadn't just descended from the sky. I noticed there were black burn marks along the front end, and part of it looked like it'd been melted.

"What do you think it is?" Tobias asked.

"Does it matter?" Marco retorted. "I'd say it doesn't matter, seeing as it hasn't killed us yet."

[I am not here to kill you,] a voice said. Well, not exactly _said_. I understood the words, but no one had spoken out loud. It was as if someone was speaking directly into my mind.

"Did you all hear that?" I asked. What if it had just been me? What if I was going crazy?

Everyone else nodded, and they looked as scared as I was. At least if I was crazy, I wasn't the only one.

Tobias seemed to be working up his courage. He finally spoke up, and he was the first of us to speak directly to the thing.

"If you're not here to kill us, what are you here to do?" he asked.

[I am here to warn you,] the same voice said.

"Could you come out?" Tobias asked.

"No way! Are you insane? We don't know what he - she - it will _do_ to us!" Marco hissed.

"He said he wasn't going to hurt us," Tobias said.

[Yes, I can come out. Do not be frightened,] the voice said.

Why had he warned us not to be frightened? Would he look scarier than anything we'd seen before? Images of the mutants I'd seen, both in person and in class, raced through my mind; and pictures of the people with the plague, their blistered flesh practically melting off their bodies.

But what happened next wasn't very frightening. A panel of the ship I hadn't noticed before opened, and a blue creature stepped out, collapsing only a few feet from the door. Tobias, Rachel, and Cassie ran over. I followed. Marco cautiously inched his way forward. We all wanted to know what had just happened, and what this creature had to warn us about.

The creature was blue, and had an appearance odder than any mutant, but not scarier. He had the body of a deer, but where the head should have been, there was a blue and tan torso, almost human but skinnier. His head had strange ears, and an odd nose, but no mouth, probably why he spoke directly to our minds. On top of his head were two extra eyes on stalks, looking around almost at random. I wasn't sure why he thought we'd be frightened until I saw his tail.

He had a tail much like his ship did - powerful, with a sharp blade at the end. I could tell by looking at it that he could slice right through any one of us. But the tail was resting on the ground, the blade lying among the trash on the ground. The tail wasn't the only thing he had in common with his ship, though. He had a long black burn mark down his side, too.

"What _are_ you?" Marco asked. Rachel slapped his shoulder. "Rude much?" she said.

[It is forgiven. I am an Andalite called Elfangor-Sirinial-Shamtul. I come from a planet far from yours - I believe that in the past, the word _alien_ would have been applicable to me.]

Tobias seemed startled. "I've read that word before, but I never knew what it meant," he muttered.

"You're hurt," Cassie said. "There are doctors nearby - the Safe Zone hospital isn't far. We could - "

The Andalite cut her off.

[No,] he said. [No doctor can help me. The wound is fatal. I will die.]

"You're just going to give up?" Rachel demanded.

[I have decided not to fight the inevitable. My time is limited, and I must spend as much of it as I can passing on my warning.]

Everyone fell silent.

[Your world has already suffered. You, I am sure, have suffered,] he said. [But I am here to pass onto you more suffering; the knowledge of another attack.]

"The plague again?" Marco asked, shuddering.

[Far worse,] Elfangor said. [The attackers I have come to warn you about come from a planet far from yours. They have traveled through space to reach your world, and despite its problems, they are determined to have it. They are called the Yeerks, and they may be what ends human civilization for all time.]

"How will they do that?" Cassie asked.

[The Yeerks are parasites,] Elfangor said. [On their own, they are almost powerless - blind, deaf, slow. They must have a host to live in. In this form they are known as Controllers. They enter the brain and are absorbed into it, taking over the host's thoughts and feelings. They control the host absolutely. Any person around you may be a Controller, and you will never know it. Usually they try to get the host to accept them voluntarily. It is easier that way. Otherwise the host may be able to resist, at least a little.]

"So when are these Yeerks coming?" Marco asked.

[They are already here,] Elfangor said.

"And you just let this happen?" Marco asked. He had forgotten his fear. Now he was furious.

[We had hoped to stop them,] Elfangor said. [This is not the first world they have tried to take, but we underestimated them. Swarms of their Bug fighters were waiting when our Dome ship came out of Z-Space. We knew of their mothership and were ready for the Bug fighters, but the Yeerks surprised us- they had hidden a powerful Blade ship in a crater of your moon. We fought, but... we lost. They have tracked me here. They will be here soon to eliminate all traces of me and my ship.]

"How?" Rachel asked. "It's pretty large - "

[Their Dracon beams will leave nothing behind but a few molecules of this ship, and... this body,] he said, almost sadly. [I sent a message to my home world. We Andalites fight the Yeerks wherever they go throughout the universe. My people will send help, but it may take a year, even more, and by then the Yeerks will have control of this planet. After that, there is no hope. You must tell people. You _must_ warn your people!]

"But how will we do that, if some of them are Controllers?" Tobias asked.

"Yeah, they could just find out who we are and kill us," Marco said.

[That is a valid point; perhaps . . . ] he trailed off.

"Perhaps what?" I asked.

[Go into my ship. You will see a small blue box, very plain. Bring it to me.]

I opened my mouth to question him, but he cut me off.

[Quickly! I have very little time, and the Yeerks will find me soon.]

Everyone looked at me, expecting me to be the one to venture in through the door. I sighed and entered the metal thing - ship, I guessed, since that was what the Andalite had called it. The inside was surprisingly simple. It looked cozy, almost. Everything was a creamy color with rounded edges and shapes that tended to be oval. There was no chair, just a sort of open space where I guess the Andalite stood on his four hooves while he worked the few controls, which I guessed moved the metal container. It was almost like the controls of one of the cars I'd seen on scavenge trips - but with fewer buttons and things.

I spotted the box easily. It was sky blue and square, maybe four inches on each side. I carefully picked it up. It seemed kind of heavy for being so small. I carried it at arm's length as I left the ship - if this cube exploded or something, I wanted it as far from me as possible. The blue creature saw the box, and he took it from me.

[Thank you,] he said.

"So why'd you have me get the box?" I asked him.

[There is something I may be able to do to help you fight the Yeerks,] he said. [I know that you are young. I know that you have no power with which to resist the Controllers. But I may be able to give you some small powers that may help. If you wish, I can give you powers that no other human being has ever had.]

What did he mean by that? Powers that no human being has ever had? What powers? The idea of powers was scary, but also kind of exciting.

"What does the box have to do with it?" Rachel asked.  
[It is a piece of Andalite technology that the Yeerks do not have,] Elfangor said. [A technology that enables us to pass unnoticed in many parts of the universe- the power to _morph_. We have never shared this power. But your need is great.]

"It sure is," Marco muttered.

"What _is_ the power to morph, exactly?" Cassie asked.

[It is the power to change your bodies. To become any other species. Any animal. You will only need to touch a creature, to acquire its DNA pattern, and you will be able to _become_ that creature. It requires concentration and determination, but, if you are strong, you can do it. There are... limitations. Problems. Dangers, even. But there is no time to explain it all... no time. You will have to learn for yourselves. But first, do you wish to receive this power?]

Ten minutes ago, I was afraid the light would kill us. Now, I'm afraid the Yeerks will, unless we accept the help of some Andalite from the far reaches of space.

"Yes," Tobias said. "We don't have a choice if we want to save humanity."

"I'm in," Rachel said. She sounded almost . . . excited.

"Then I'm in too," Cassie said. Now all of them were looking at me and Marco.

"I'll do it," I said. "If you really think it'll be able to help us." Elfangor nodded.

Marco shifted his weight from foot to foot.

"I don't know, man. This is just so . . . insane."

[You need not accept the power,] Elfangor said. [Those of you who have agreed, press your hand against one of the sides of the cube.]

He held the cube out, supporting it entirely by the bottom face. Rachel pressed her hand to a side, then Tobias, then Cassie and I. At the last minute, Marco pressed his hand to the top side. I gave him a look.

"Hey man, there's no way I'm letting you get yourself in another mess without me there to help," he said.

The cube began to glow, and a warm feeling rushed from the hand that was touching the cube to the rest of my body. When the glow died out, I removed my hand. It didn't look any different than normal.

[There is something you must know, in order to battle the Yeerks,] the Andalite said, his voice hurried. [Their one weakness is that they still rely on Kandrona rays, a type of radiation produced by their sun, to survive. Once every three days, they must leave their host bodies and go to a Yeerk Pool saturated with Kandrona rays to survive. If they are deprived of the rays for three days, they will die.]

Overhead, more lights started to flash around the sky, hovering above us.

[Yeerks,] he said, hatred slipping into his voice.

"What do we do?" Tobias asked.

[Go now. Only remember this - never remain in animal form for more than two of your Earth hours. Never! That is the greatest danger of the morphing! If you stay longer than two hours you will be trapped, unable to return to human form.]

Marco opened his mouth, but Elfangor cut him off.

[Visser Three! He comes.]

I looked up. There were several ships descending, all vastly different from Elfangor's. Most were small and looked similar to cockroaches. But one was different - larger, deadly-looking. It had no lights and was only a dark silhouette. It almost looked like a double-headed axe. It seemed to radiate dark power.

[Go now. Run!] Elfangor said. [Visser Three is here. He is the most deadly of your enemies. Of all Yeerks he alone has the power to morph. The same power you now have. Run!]

I brought my mind back to reality and took off running. I was headed for a fairly large pile of construction debris that I could hide behind. I jumped over the pile and hit the ground on the other side hard, then found that everyone else had the same spot in mind. They were all peeking over the top of the pile to watch as the ships landed, and I turned to watch too. There was something about the whole situation that made me want to catch every detail of it.

The cockroach-like ships landed first. I guessed these were the Bug ships that Elfangor had mentioned. There were two - or five - or seven. I couldn't tell in the darkness. Doors opened in their sides, and I got my first look at the ship's occupants.

Out stepped a seven-foot-tall creature even stranger than Elfangor, and certainly more threatening. It had scaly dark green skin and a long snake neck. Its small head had a beak instead of a mouth, and it carried a strange-looking gun in its hands. It swung its head about wildly, scanning the area.

The whole creature was covered in blades at least as sharp as Elfangor's tail-blade and a great deal bigger. There were blades on its arms, its legs, its head, its muscular tail that it seemed to use like a third leg as it swung around, pointing its gun at everything. More like it ventured out of their ships and also began searching the area. I prayed they wouldn't find us.  
[Hork-Bajir-Controllers.] Elfangor was still talking to us. I hadn't expected him to, but he was, trying to give us as much information about the Yeerks as possible.  
[The Hork-Bajir are a good people, despite their fearsome looks,] he continued. [But they have been enslaved by the Yeerks. Each of them now carries a Yeerk in his head. They are to be pitied.]

The Hork-Bajir seemed to have decided the area was safe. Other aliens started to exit the ships. These were different. They looked like giant yellow centipedes with dozens of tiny red legs keeping them off the ground. They carried a third of their body off the ground, and some of these legs had claws with which they also held the strange guns. They had multiple jelly-like red eyes with no pupils.

[Taxxon-Controllers,] Elfangor said. [The Taxxons are evil.]

The Hork-Bajir and Taxxons began spreading out, forming a perimeter of sorts. One Hork-Bajir stood only a meter from the pile of rubble where we hid.

"We are so dead," Marco hissed.

[Silence!] Elfangor said. [Hork-Bajir do not see well in darkness, but their hearing is very good.]

Marco pressed his lips together tightly.

"Look," Cassie whispered, pointing up. I looked up to see the bigger ship descending.

[Courage, my friends,] Elfangor said.

"Why is he saying that?" Rachel asked.

"I don't know," I admitted.

The ship landed on the ground. This ship didn't just look different from the others, it _felt_ different, like it was radiating evil. The door of the ship began to lower, forming a ramp from the elevated ship to the ground. A few more Hork-Bajir and Taxxons walked out, standing straight. When they appeared, all the aliens stood straight up.

"They're standing at attention," I said.

"How can you tell?" Marco asked, trying to maintain his cocky attitude, but I could hear the fear in his voice.

I could hear the next alien coming down the ramp before I could see him.

Clonk, clonk, clonk. Hooves on the metal of the ramp.

[Visser Three.]

The alien came into view, and even though his head was turned the other way, he looked so much like Elfangor that I had to look between the two to make sure they weren't the same person. But then Visser Three's head pointed our way, and I knew I would never confuse the two again. Visser Three had cold, cruel eyes, the opposite of Elfangor's, and he seemed to radiate hatred and evil like his ship did.

[Only once a Yeerk has been able to take an Andalite body,] Elfangor said. I could hear the fear in his voice that I could see in his eyes, but he was still talking, still trying to help us as much as possible.

[There is only one Andalite-Controller. That one is Visser Three.]

[This is a sight I have been waiting for,] another voice spoke in our heads. It was harsh and cold, and I realized it was Visser Three.

[The great War Prince Elfangor, lying on the ground before me,] he continued.

"What's a War Prince?" Rachel asked me, as if I knew. I just shook my head, afraid that Visser Three would hear us.

[You have fallen, as all your people will eventually fall,] Visser Three said. [One day soon, Yeerks will rule the galaxy, and all Andalites will be our slaves.]

"Guys?" Marco said. "Something just occurred to me."

"What is it?" Cassie asked.

"We can hear the Andalite's thoughts, right? What if they can hear ours?" Marco asked.

"We're so dead," Rachel said.

[He cannot hear your thoughts,] Elfangor said. [As long as you don't direct them to him. You hear his thoughts because he is broadcasting them for all to hear. This is a great victory for them, so he wants all to hear.]

"How'd he know we were wondering?" Cassie asked.

I shrugged.

[There is no escaping me now,] the Visser said. [You are the last Andalite anywhere near Earth. When you are taken care of, there will be no chance for the humans to free themselves. They will be ours.]

[Other Andalites will come,] Elfangor said. [In the end, you will be defeated. The Yeerk empire will fall.]

[Not for years to come,] the Visser said. [The Earth will be ours.]

[Never,] Elfangor said.

[Quite soon, actually,] Visser Three said. [Now, what to do with _you_ . . . you _would_ make a powerful host body, but I rather enjoy being the only Yeerk with an Andalite host body. So . . . I think you will die.]

One of the Hork-Bajir stepped forward, pointing its strange gun at Elfangor.

[No, you fool!] Visser Three sneered. [I will handle him myself!]

Visser Three stood there for a moment. Then his body began to change. He puffed outwards like a balloon, muscle pressing against his skin. His tail was sucked into his body, as were his stalk eyes.

"What's going on?" Cassie asked.

[He is morphing,] Elfangor said.

We watched on in horror as the Visser transformed into a towering monster with tentacle arms and a gaping mouth. Its teeth were at least as long as my arm.

[Any last words?] the Visser asked. [Or will your Andalite pride send you to your death in silence?]

[You will not win this war, Yeerk,] Elfangor said. [Even if you take this planet, we will stop you on another.]

[That is a foolish sentiment. Look at where that thinking has brought you,] the Visser said, wrapping one of his tentacle arms around Elfangor, lifting him up from the ground. Elfangor slashed at the Visser with his tail blade, but he was weak.

Visser Three lifted Elfangor above his open mouth and dropped him.

I forced myself to turn away as the Visser ate Elfangor, but I couldn't stop myself from hearing it. The sounds I heard that night will haunt me until I die.

A burst of blue blood splattered over our hiding place, and over us. I recoiled, but Marco's reaction was more extreme.

Marco leaned over and threw up, his vomit mixing with Elfangor's blood.

The Hork-Bajir in front of us turned around.

"Run!" Tobias screamed. I could hear everyone else standing up, running away, but I couldn't. My eyes were locked on the Hork-Bajir's. I was trapped.

[Find them!] the Visser screamed. [Kill them all!]


End file.
